Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/162

 '''72. Literature about Music.'''—To give an adequate account of the many musical books from the invention of printing to 1600 is here impracticable. Fifty or more authors might be named, chiefly Italians or Germans, writing upon standard subjects like Plain-Song, Solmization, Counterpoint, Intervals, Notation, etc., with reference to the practical needs of singers and composers. A few, however, were constructive theorists, dealing with musical procedure in more than a routine or annalistic manner. There were traces, too, of the dawning historic spirit, seeking to describe how the art had been evolved and how it differed in different countries, with some summaries of composers, works and instruments. Almost all treatises were still written in Latin, and many writers (like many composers) were known under the often curious Latin paraphrases of their real names.

Jean Tinctoris (d. 1511), choirmaster in the Royal Chapel of Naples in 1475-87, then in the Papal Chapel till 1500, and finally at Nivelles (Brabant), issued about 1475 the first printed dictionary of musical terms and left a large number of tractates in MS., besides some compositions.

Franchino Gafori (d. 1522), from 1484 connected with Milan Cathedral, published his first treatise in 1480, his greatest in  1496 and others later. A strong supporter of the older views of theory, he was drawn into the strenuous debate opened in 1482 by Bartolomeo Ratnis de Pareja, a Spanish teacher at Bologna, later at Rome, to whom Nicolò Burzio of Parma (d. 1518) responded in 1487, followed in 1491 by Ramis' pupil Giovanni Spataro (d. 1541), who was then attacked by Gafori in 1518-20, and who responded with emphasis in 1521-31. Ramis took positions about the scale, interval-ratios and chromatic tones that were far ahead of his day, prefiguring the maturer theory of the 18th century.

Passing over Jacques Le Febvre [Faber Stapulensis] (d. c. 1537), royal tutor at Paris and later at Navarre, Michael Keinspeck of Nuremberg (both writing in 1496), Nicolaus Wollick of Paris (works, 1501-12), Joannes Cochlæus ['''Joh. Dobnek or Wendelstein'''] (d. 1552) of Worms, Mayence, Frankfort and Breslau (works, 1507-11), and Simon de Quercu of Vienna (1509), we come to

Sebastian Virdung, organist at Basle, who published in 1511 (in German) his invaluable treatise on keyboard and other instruments (illustrated), with practical directions about notation and tablature, which Ottomarus Luscinius [Nachtigall] (d. c. 1536) of Strassburg, Augsburg and Freiburg translated into Latin in 1536, besides his own theoretical book in 1515.

Again passing over Wenceslaus Philomathes of Vienna (1512)  and Sebastian von Felstein of Cracow (1515), several leading names follow:—

Pietro Aaron of Venice (d. 1545) issued works (1516-'45) that resemble Gafori's in scope, but take the progressive side of the famous dispute. His last work contains a list of various musicians, men and women.